Brittany Wenger wrote an algorithm to better detect breast cancer

Challenge

Doctors strive to provide consistent and reliable care for their patients. Having a personal experience with cancer, and wanting to better her world, Brittany Wenger decided to use her abilities as a scientist and researcher to create an incredible, almost living, network that diagnoses breast cancer.

"Awards do not define me; however, they validate my scientific research. With each year, my research increases in complexity and has more potential to have a positive benefit on mankind."

Brittany Wenger, Student, Duke University

Solution

By using the power of the Cloud, Brittany created an incredible network that proved to detect cancer accurately. Brittany used Google Apps Engine (one of the tools of Google Cloud Platform) to build an artificial neural network. Her Google Science Fair entry resembled an artificial brain that essentially taught the cloud network how to detect patterns that were too complex to be recognized by humans. By applying these artificial neural networks to individualized data her program could detect breast cancer with a 99.1% accuracy. Her program is being used in hospitals to diagnose patients.

Organization Profile

This 2012 Google Science Fair winner was only a junior when her research made a significant impact in the medical and technology fields. Harnessing the power of technology and combining it with a love for Science, Brittany Wenger created an artificial brain that could diagnose breast cancer with incredible accuracy. More recently, she was named one of Time’s Top 30 people under 30 for her contribution to mankind.